goat wrote:While I agree that lavishing un-scrutinized praise upon the president is a bad and clearly wrong path, and he has certainly has made a few mistakes already, he is undoubtedly above the company of those men.

I do have to give the President credit: he thinks what he's doing is right. So do Beck and Limbaugh. In that vein, there is no difference, yet you demonize the latter and deify the former. What would you say if I started a hatemongering thread about Obama?

Oh wait, I already know what you'd say: "Lock/ban plz."

I'm assuming you were only after the first part of that quote, recognizing that the president is not infallible, just like everyone else, and not the part where I condemn Beck (or his editing staff) for comparing the cabinet to a felon and a potential felon.

As far as doing what you think is right: I'm all for it. I just happen to think that what Rush and Beck think are right, are (by and large) is completely wrong, where as what Obama thinks is right does prove to be right (at least in my opinion) some of the time.

It's not that I'm deifying the president; believe me, I'm not. It's just that I tend to support things that he does/says. Rather than not supporting things that Beck and Limbaugh say. Feel free to support Beck and Limbaugh all you like, I'll tend to disagree based on their ideologies, just as you would probably disagree with my support for some of Obama's policies/statements.

TLDR: You seem to be trying to make this more about the person than about the ideas they support.

Except nobody would be able to agree on how to combine them. Or even admit that the opposing view has any merit. Generally the only people who would have any chance of doing such a thing are the moderates, where you generally have the same arguments, just on a different scale, and they usually don't have the support to accomplish much, and lack the numbers to do it on their own.

Or something, I'm just talking out my ass here (gotta practice, playing Libya on the Security Council in May).

TheRocket wrote:Apparently the crotch area could not contain the badonkadonk area.

Master Gunner wrote:Except nobody would be able to agree on how to combine them. Or even admit that the opposing view has any merit. Generally the only people who would have any chance of doing such a thing are the moderates, where you generally have the same arguments, just on a different scale, and they usually don't have the support to accomplish much, and lack the numbers to do it on their own.

Or something, I'm just talking out my ass here (gotta practice, playing Libya on the Security Council in May).

Actually, the political parties and their alignments have shifted dramatically in the last few decades. Can you guess which President this was:

Strongly conservationistFought for tougher regulations on big businessBelieved in workers rights and policies to benefit the working poorSought to keep a strong military presence.

That was Teddy Roosevelt, my favorite president, a little more than a hundred years ago. He was a Republican, but now all his actions look like those of a hawkish Democrat. Also, look at the "maniac" Eisenhower... who expanded and continued the New Deal, advocated massive government spending to create the interstate highway system, and supported civil rights. At the time, though, he was seen as conservative... for failing to be pro-active on civil rights, and for not working actively against McCarthy. Nowadays I'd say he's about at the same place on the political spectrum as, say, Bill Clinton (who can be similarly criticized for passing "don't ask don't tell" and pandering somewhat to corporations.)

So where did this shift come from? Well I'd largely attribute things to the Dixiecrats. Research them if you don't know what I'm talking about. In 1948 Strom Thurmond split from the democratic party (that's right, he was once a democrat... another sign of how much political views shifted in a few decades) to form a segregationist party. Their party slogan was "Segregation Forever." They actually won a few states in the south in the 1948 election, but collapsed immediately after that. Still, their favored policies were now at odds with the Democrats advocacy of Civil rights.

The big change came when Nixon sought to employ Kevin Phillips' "Southern Strategy." Here's a quote from Phillips explaining the strategy:

"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats"

After Nixon started playing to this strategy, the Republicans started winning the south, and some of the former Dixiecrats turned their support away from Democratic candidates and toward Republican ones. The problem here was that the Republican party had to continue, at least on the surface, to campaign on racial fears in the south. I honestly think the republican adoption of the "southern strategy" and absorption of the dixiecrats is one of the things that is responsible for some of the more bothersome political views the right now endorses.

Matt wrote:Yuki, if you have nothing more constructive to add to this than a wounded, self-righteous, persecution complex then don't participate.

And, in keeping with that, you're posting on a message board run by candians, who themselves identify as left-leaning for canadians on a board populated predominantly by youg, liberal folks. Consiider your audience. If you want to post some ultra-conservative view of the universe and have it taken seriously, perhaps you should consider taking it to, you know, a conservative political site? You're not going to get the balanced treatment of your political views that you seem to think you deserve here, because most of the people here don't share them, and to some of us you come off as a paranoid, ultra-conservative nutjob (and I mean that in the nicest way possible).

So either understand that you're arguing with the wrong audience and take your comments elsewhere, or keep posting here, but understand that it's unlikely you'll find many sympathetic ears, and get over it.

You lean WAY right of even most of the right-wingers on this board. bear that in mind.

-m

Yes, I recognize I am more right-leaning than any other person I've met, and that this board in general leans further left than anybody I know face-to-face. The last Liberal-run board I voiced my Conservative opinions on, I was banned from.

Against previously-stated board policy, I would argue, but I figure if they want to be rid of me that badly, I don't want anything to do with them.

I am not attempting to argue in favor of what Beck and Limbaugh are doing, nor am I necessarily attempting to make anyone else here see Obama for what I see him as(a description which I'll not post here).

I am attempting to point out that the people saying "OMGZ BECK AND LIMBAUGH NEED 2 BURN!" are being no less insane than the Republicans who claim Obama will destroy the United States as it stands or, indeed, the VERY MEN YOU ARE DEMONIZING. Something about logs and motes comes to mind, and there are a lot of logs in eyes here.

I'm not sure you validated what you said Yukikaze. All I can say is you're a dick, liberals are dicks every really is a dick in the end to one side or the other. I'm not sure this thread is going anywhere now so it's really dicking itself in the arse and the way you post you've already dicked yourself.

If those two people who were mentioned before are dicks (Couldn't care about their names) let them. But if Obama proves himself or dicks himself then either side can say: "I told you so" but then it won't do anything to help either side in the end and you just end up like squabbling children.....OH WAIT!

Maybe I've just dicked myself in this argument, well back to square one.

Matt wrote:Yuki, if you have nothing more constructive to add to this than a wounded, self-righteous, persecution complex then don't participate.

And, in keeping with that, you're posting on a message board run by candians, who themselves identify as left-leaning for canadians on a board populated predominantly by youg, liberal folks. Consiider your audience. If you want to post some ultra-conservative view of the universe and have it taken seriously, perhaps you should consider taking it to, you know, a conservative political site? You're not going to get the balanced treatment of your political views that you seem to think you deserve here, because most of the people here don't share them, and to some of us you come off as a paranoid, ultra-conservative nutjob (and I mean that in the nicest way possible).

So either understand that you're arguing with the wrong audience and take your comments elsewhere, or keep posting here, but understand that it's unlikely you'll find many sympathetic ears, and get over it.

You lean WAY right of even most of the right-wingers on this board. bear that in mind.

-m

Yes, I recognize I am more right-leaning than any other person I've met, and that this board in general leans further left than anybody I know face-to-face. The last Liberal-run board I voiced my Conservative opinions on, I was banned from.

Against previously-stated board policy, I would argue, but I figure if they want to be rid of me that badly, I don't want anything to do with them.

I am not attempting to argue in favor of what Beck and Limbaugh are doing, nor am I necessarily attempting to make anyone else here see Obama for what I see him as(a description which I'll not post here).

I am attempting to point out that the people saying "OMGZ BECK AND LIMBAUGH NEED 2 BURN!" are being no less insane than the Republicans who claim Obama will destroy the United States as it stands or, indeed, the VERY MEN YOU ARE DEMONIZING. Something about logs and motes comes to mind, and there are a lot of logs in eyes here.

I disagree. I think there's a popular fallacy that all people and all political views are equal, and should be given equal time, and that hating anyone

I hate Joe McCarthy. Yeah, he's dead now and he can't hurt anyone anymore, but there are still people who think what he did was OK. I hate him and his principles and I think he was a monster. My grandfather's spent years unemployed fighting the last vestiges of McCarthyism when his job tried to make him sign a loyalty oath. Joe McCarthy was an evil man who did horrible things and ruined the lives of thousands of people, but he thought what he was doing was "right" the whole time.

There are people who hate Martin Luther King. Now, by hating Joe McCarthy am I being "just as insane" as people who hate Martin Luther King? I don't think I am.

I'm not going to say you have to have some level of hatred to fight evil. But we are human, and we are going to hate the monsters of history. I also hate Pol Pot, does that make me "just as insane" as the people who hate FDR? I think you're arguing for a false equivalency here. Not all hatred is equally hysterical or unreasonable. Not all political arguments are equally valid.

I never said I was going to ban you. we don't ban people for having opinions, differing or otherwise. we ban people for being stupid shits, and have only ever done i to one person. He deserved it. You don't.

I told you to take your persecution complex elsewhere.

If you want to have a differing opinion and discuss it, that's fine.

If you think you're alone in a cold, dark world, then go find some friends.

This is what I'm saying. you can have a differing opinion. you can even point out hypocracies. But don't pretend to be all wounded over the fact that no one likes what you're saying. Consider where you are.

Yukikaze wrote:(I recognize the above line is giving LRR license to ban me. If you want me gone that badly, then I probably didn't want to stay, anyway.)

Like Matt said, we don't ban for opinions (and we don't want you gone for yours) but please understand that the majority population of this board are going to disagree with you on these topics. And as long as you're okay with it, that's fine.

All Matt's saying is please don't feel personally persecuted, there's simply more people on one side of the argument than the other*.

*This does not mean that the minority needs to get louder to compensate. Not saying you would, just realized I might be setting up a bad idea there.